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Those are if and buts. I am more interested if he wrote similar for Churchill. As they say winners write the history.

by hesarenu 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 6y ago
And if Hitler had been the winner?
- hesarenu 6y ago
  Well what if East India Company did not come to India, what if Turks did not invade India it would go on. Anyway Churchill's polices led to famine, which could have been avoided. His attitude towards India can be considered as racist.
  - forgingahead 6y ago
    Most things in life are not simplistic black/white decisions, whereby bad outcomes occurred because the people themselves were bad. Doing anything results in trade-offs. Some trade-offs are worse than others, and some have horrible consequences, like deaths of many, but writing off the decision as a racist one implies malicious intent, which ignores the potentially real decisions that were being made. For others reading this thread, parents seems to be referring to the Bengal Famine of 1943. Wiki has a decent summary, but it again demonstrates the circumstances and trade-offs that were made. Was it a good outcome? Famine and death certainly isn't. But was it done maliciously out of "racism"? Some scholars claim so, but often these are the same scholars who see everything through a lens of racism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#1942%E2%80%9344:_Refusal_of_imports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#1942%E2%...
    - hesarenu 6y ago
      This happens whenever Churchill is mentioned. Since he was fought against Nazis seems people don't want to judge his actions not related to it. Since it might picture him not as great man. Most of his opinions are the westerners. What we needed was more articles from Indians since they are the one who were affected.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > Well what if East India Company did not come to India, what if Turks did not invade India it would go on. The East India company came to India 262 years before Churchill was born. But if we want to talk about that, why not also talk about the Mughals, Muslims who invaded India and are the source for many aspects of Indian culture. (I have an Arabic last name because of the Mughals.) Like other Muslim empires, the Mughals were prolific slavers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_India (“Slavery in India escalated during the Muslim domination of northern India after the 11th-century, after Muslim rulers re-introduced slavery to the Indian subcontinent.”). If we start wiping out parts of our history that are unpleasant we won’t have anything left. > Anyway Churchill's polices led to famine, which could have been avoided. No, the famine was caused by environmental disasters. Nobody thinks it “could have been avoided.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53405121 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53405121 (“‘We can't blame him for creating the famine in any way,’ says Ms. Khan. ‘What we can say is that he didn't alleviate it when he had the ability to do so, and we can blame him for prioritising white lives and European lives over South Asian lives.’”). Churchill made a decision to prioritize resources for the war effort. By 1943 the UK was devastated. It lost 1% of its population in World War II. Those resources could have saved many lives in Bengal. But how friendly do you think Nazi Germany would have been to Indians had Britain not won the war? You can’t judge Churchill purely by the consequences of his actions without also addressing what could have happened had Churchill acted differently. > His attitude towards India can be considered as racist. Churchill once said “Indians are the beastliest people in the world after Germans.” But Ghandi was racist towards Africans (although his views evolved somewhat as he got older): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34265882 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34265882. Everyone was racist back then, and in most of the world, people are still very racist. Churchill was no more racist towards India, than Indians in my parents generation are racist towards Africa or China. (And in Bangladesh, toward Jews.) And frankly, outside maybe the educated class in India and Bangladesh, most people are still that racist today. It doesn’t make any sense to judge people by the standards of society decades later. If we did that we would have nobody left to admire. Churchill isn’t famous for his racism. He is famous for holding off Nazi Germany for years while American sat in the sidelines. He deserves to be held in esteem for that virtue, even if we recognize the faults he shared with other people of his era.

Those are if and buts. I am more interested if he wrote similar for Churchill. As they say winners write the history.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 6y ago

And if Hitler had been the winner?

hesarenu 6y ago
Well what if East India Company did not come to India, what if Turks did not invade India it would go on. Anyway Churchill's polices led to famine, which could have been avoided. His attitude towards India can be considered as racist.
- forgingahead 6y ago
  Most things in life are not simplistic black/white decisions, whereby bad outcomes occurred because the people themselves were bad. Doing anything results in trade-offs. Some trade-offs are worse than others, and some have horrible consequences, like deaths of many, but writing off the decision as a racist one implies malicious intent, which ignores the potentially real decisions that were being made. For others reading this thread, parents seems to be referring to the Bengal Famine of 1943. Wiki has a decent summary, but it again demonstrates the circumstances and trade-offs that were made. Was it a good outcome? Famine and death certainly isn't. But was it done maliciously out of "racism"? Some scholars claim so, but often these are the same scholars who see everything through a lens of racism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#1942%E2%80%9344:_Refusal_of_imports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#1942%E2%...
  - hesarenu 6y ago
    This happens whenever Churchill is mentioned. Since he was fought against Nazis seems people don't want to judge his actions not related to it. Since it might picture him not as great man. Most of his opinions are the westerners. What we needed was more articles from Indians since they are the one who were affected.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > Well what if East India Company did not come to India, what if Turks did not invade India it would go on. The East India company came to India 262 years before Churchill was born. But if we want to talk about that, why not also talk about the Mughals, Muslims who invaded India and are the source for many aspects of Indian culture. (I have an Arabic last name because of the Mughals.) Like other Muslim empires, the Mughals were prolific slavers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_India (“Slavery in India escalated during the Muslim domination of northern India after the 11th-century, after Muslim rulers re-introduced slavery to the Indian subcontinent.”). If we start wiping out parts of our history that are unpleasant we won’t have anything left. > Anyway Churchill's polices led to famine, which could have been avoided. No, the famine was caused by environmental disasters. Nobody thinks it “could have been avoided.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53405121 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53405121 (“‘We can't blame him for creating the famine in any way,’ says Ms. Khan. ‘What we can say is that he didn't alleviate it when he had the ability to do so, and we can blame him for prioritising white lives and European lives over South Asian lives.’”). Churchill made a decision to prioritize resources for the war effort. By 1943 the UK was devastated. It lost 1% of its population in World War II. Those resources could have saved many lives in Bengal. But how friendly do you think Nazi Germany would have been to Indians had Britain not won the war? You can’t judge Churchill purely by the consequences of his actions without also addressing what could have happened had Churchill acted differently. > His attitude towards India can be considered as racist. Churchill once said “Indians are the beastliest people in the world after Germans.” But Ghandi was racist towards Africans (although his views evolved somewhat as he got older): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34265882 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34265882. Everyone was racist back then, and in most of the world, people are still very racist. Churchill was no more racist towards India, than Indians in my parents generation are racist towards Africa or China. (And in Bangladesh, toward Jews.) And frankly, outside maybe the educated class in India and Bangladesh, most people are still that racist today. It doesn’t make any sense to judge people by the standards of society decades later. If we did that we would have nobody left to admire. Churchill isn’t famous for his racism. He is famous for holding off Nazi Germany for years while American sat in the sidelines. He deserves to be held in esteem for that virtue, even if we recognize the faults he shared with other people of his era.